My Bronco's other half.

Figured I'd make a thread on my truck and show what little I've done to it. I have a thread on FTE, but I spend waaaay more time here now and I let that thread all but die years ago, so why not.

It was going to be a much bigger project until I picked up my Bronco 3 years ago. It's pretty much been put on hold ever since, though I do drive it most days. I basically got it into good enough condition to drive and have been driving it without continuing to fix/upgrade it while the Bronco has been getting the special treatment.

I still have plans for it in general, but it's gonna be a while before they get enacted. Sometimes I regret getting the Bronco, because I now have two half completed projects instead of one that's done. At least they are both drivable and I can enjoy them for what they currently are and someday I'll have two completed projects!

I don't have any pics of it from when I first got it or of all the little things I fixed on it, but this pic was taken maybe a year later which is before I altered the exterior and it looks the same as when I bought it. It's a 1977 F100 Custom 2wd short bed. The truck right behind it is my old 1975 F150 Custom that had a broken engine and the maroon bumpside next to that was my old neighbors. I wish I still lived there, because, as you can see, I had a lot of off street parking.





I'll most likely be jumping all over the place timeline-wise with all the pics. On the day I took that last pic I was swapping wheels out. I had bought a used set of very cheap, very heavy (steel apparently) 20" rims for $160. I went to a local shop that specializes in used tires and basically bought some nearly done 245/45r20 tires for like another $100 to finish off my cheap experiment to see if I liked 20's.





I drove it like that for a little while until I saved up enough money for a 3/4 drop kit from DJM which consisted of 3" drop "Dream Beams" and a set of 4" drop shackles and hangers for the stock leaf springs. I was a little leery of c-notching the frame, so I opted not to do a flip on the rear. Here are a few pics of the hardware on the truck.









Because of the drop on the beams, they add what is essentially a spacer to lower the tie rods. The tie rods go through the radius arms.





And since we're in the front end, I replaced the radius arm bushings and put on all new tie rods and shocks. I also replaced the steering gear to help tighten everything up.







It's hard to get a good idea of how much it dropped with the pics I have of it. I haven't really taken a whole lot since I've had it, but this one next to my Bronco when I got the Bronco gives a decent idea of where it sits now.







And, as I'm not one to throw things out too quickly, I kept the old beams, shackles, and hangers. I still have them laying on my porch juuust in case I ever decide I don't want it lowered with the Dream Beams anymore. You'll also notice the big mirrors that were on the truck are sitting in the bed as well. In hindsight, looking at this pic right now, I should have kept the mirror heads as they were in pretty good condition despite being ugly mirrors overall. They would make good backups for my Bronco, but that was a good few years before I got my Bronco, so that was clearly not on my mind. There's also a 3g alternator off a Taurus that was meant for the truck and a black box holding the old halogen headlights.





Speaking of headlights, I added the fabled headlight relay kit. There's also a little black box for my LED headlights, though I don't recall what it was for. It was just part of the wiring that came with them.





Here's a comparison of the headlights I put on. The perspective of the camera makes the LEDs look significantly smaller than the old halogens, but they're not that small. There is a slight difference in diameter between the two, but it's like an 1/8th inch or something like that. They wouldn't have fit with the factory trim rings that hold them in place otherwise.









And, yes, those are halos. They're even green halos to "match" my green truck or at least that was the idea at the time. In hindsight I should have gotten amber halos and tapped them into my turn signals. I still may do that with some new headlights as these particular headlights really aren't that much of an improvement over the old halogens. It's only a matter of time!